Review: Vertigo & Ghost (2019)
by Rape. It’s a word that we flinch from – in conversation, in public discourse, and in Classics classrooms. And perhaps we flinch doubly when a …
Why you should read… Lucretius
by I have a confession to make: I think Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura is the finest work of Latin literature. I’m not some kind of Classics …
The War & Warfare option: why it works for my pupils
by War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. The study of war and warfare does, however, gives great insight into the Ancient World. At least …
Language of the Muses: the connection between music and Ancient Greek
by There is a long-standing and much-discussed interaction between music and language. First, there is the age-old debate of whether music is itself a language—“the universal …
How do you get pupils analysing style for themselves?
Set texts and the search for style points can bring many pupils – even good linguists – down to earth with a bump. How exciting, …
New OCR Classical Civilisation GCSE (9-1): the teacher’s view
by The OCR Classical Civilisation GCSE (9-1) – J199 is now two years old, and had its first and much-anticipated (and worried-about) round of exams this …
What happened when a History teacher taught themselves Latin GCSE?
by I’m going to share a secret with you all. My name is Rachel, and I’m a history teacher, but I don’t have a history degree. …
Review: Oh My Gods! by Alexandra Sheppard (2019)
‘He’s like the Beyoncé of my immortal family.’ Guess the god. And which Olympian likes sauerkraut, Crocs and car boot sales ‘somewhere off the North …
What is differentiation?
by Over the last 18 months I’ve been a part of the team writing a new KS3 textbook, De Romanis. When creating language exercises in the …
What’s the point of a vocab test?
This post is about the power of tests as learning events. But first allow me to share a memory of my very earliest teaching days… …
Why I wrote… Clarke’s Latin
by When asked why I embarked upon writing Variatio: A Scholarship Latin Course – the two-part primer I published in 2015 – I have always had …
Review: Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (2019)
by The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek, by Evert van Emde Boas, Albert Rijksbaron, Luuk Huitink and Mathieu de Bakker (CUP 2019), paperback, pp xlii + …
Last Supper in Pompeii: what will your pupils get out of it?
With the new term looming like a superheated ash cloud, I got on an escape train to Oxford last Friday in order to see the …
Should you give your pupils a translation of their set texts?
by Much like Aeneas’ journey into the Underworld, preparing set texts over the summer holiday is a liminal phase between the old life and the new. …
Three tips for teaching Ancient History GCSE
by As schools have just received their first set of 9-1 Ancient History GCSE grades, this would seem an apposite moment to offer some thoughts on …